" He refutes the moral superiority of the soul over the flesh historically prevalent throughout Western thought. With that level groundwork established, he is free to pursue the relationship between the soul and the body on equal footing.
Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published on the fourth of July in 1855. He was thirty-six years old, not yet a published writer, and could not find any company willing to take a chance on his unusual style. His experience in newspapers allowed him to help publish his work himself, even setting up some of the type and distributing the first edition. To get a decent start, Whitman even went so far as to write complimentary unsigned reviews of his book which he had placed in the newspapers- "An American bard at last! "- His own words of his first work, showing his audacity to be well thought of. Whitman wrote only one book- Leaves of Grass- but he took a lifetime to write it, and he saw his one book through many shapes. As biographers have found, it is difficult to write the life of Whitman without writing instead the life and times of his book. He was the kind of parent who lives his life through his child, though he was unmarried and childless. As though in anticipation of scholars and critics who would probe deeply into his private affairs, Whitman placed a warning at the beginning of "Leaves of Grass". A little reflection will confirm Whitman's point: "no man's life was ever captured and placed between the covers of a book." As Whitman suggests, the reader who would know his life must read his book, and even there he will find only a "few diffused faint 'clews'". No longer a journalist, no longer a carpenter, Whitman was during this period in the process of establishing his identity, not only for the public and posterity, but for himself. .
"Song of Myself" was by far the longest, a prophetic chant that was designed to shock, startle, surprise, and disturb.
